Fabric Ornaments In A Hurry Tutorial

Pages are flying off the calendar as if this were a Frank Capra movie. Just in case you're desperately seeking ideas that can be made quickly but show the love in a big way, here's a suggestion.

Use your inkjet printer and inkjet fabric to make ornaments. They're flat, so they're easy to mail and easy to store after the holidays. And for people like us who always get a Charlie Brown tree, they're light enough to hang on even the skimpiest branches.

Gather Your Materials
You'll need:
-- Inkjet fabric
-- Photos or a digital camera and favorite holiday ornaments
-- Fabric paint like Lumiere (a jar of Metallic Silver comes in handy for the holidays)
-- A brush
-- Fusible webbing
-- Iron
-- Felt
-- Beads, beading thread and a needle

Print The Fabric
Take pictures with your digital camera of favorite holiday ornaments or anything else you like, or scan images into your computer. Open a document (Word, Publisher or whatever you have) and arrange images to fill an 8-1/2" x 11" page. Give yourself a half-inch or so between images and at the margins so you have some room to work.

Read the directions on your inkjet fabric. Put it in your printer, and print the document. Let the ink dry while you load your White Christmas DVD.

Paint The Fabric
Add some holiday sparkle with metallic fabric paint. The carrier paper that stiffened the fabric so it would go through your printer will help stabilize it while you paint.

It won't take much paint. Just brush on a little Lumiere where you want to mask a distracting element (like the old boyfriend), make a boring background more interesting, or add the suggestion of glittering new-fallen snow. Pick up a small amount of fabric paint on your brush, brush most of it off on a paper towel, then brush it onto the fabric.

Let this dry while you make some hot chocolate and turn on the iron.

When the paint is dry, peel the carrier paper away from the printed and painted inkjet fabric.

Assemble The Ornaments
Use fusible webbing to bond the whole sheet of printed inkjet fabric to felt. You can use craft felt, but I use recycled wool fabric I shrunk in the washer. Just follow the directions of the fusible product and slap the two layers together. If there's any chance that your fabric paint isn't dry, protect your iron with baking parchment.

After bonding the two layers, cut the sheet into individual ornaments.

Embellish
Stitch a simple bead picot edging and string beads to make a hanger.

If you need to make the final embellishment work more portable, instead of beading the edges use embroidery floss and work a blanket stitch edging. Stitch on a ribbon hanger, and you're done.

Happy Holidays!